


Omission

by uschickens



Category: NSYNC
Genre: Alternate Universe - Generic Fantasy Novel, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-24
Updated: 2010-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-06 16:06:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uschickens/pseuds/uschickens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if they're maybe traveling swordsmen for hire and they've picked up more than a few enemies along the way, and Chris hasn't mentioned it yet but he's got a wife and Justin hasn't mentioned it yet but he's supposed to be a priest and they have lots and lots of narrow escapes and hot sex?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Omission

They never talked about it. They talked about everything else, but they never talked about it. Justin knew all about Chris's sisters and his mother, who was even faster with a knife than Chris himself. Chris knew all about Justin's mother and her innate perfection, and how he had once won a young ladies' deportment contest.

But they never talked about it.

Sometimes, in the smallest hours of the morning, when Chris's face was soft with sleep and heavy with satisfaction, Justin would lie next to him in bed and run light fingers over his forearm. He was secretly thrilled that Chris trusted his touch enough not to wake. Plus, once he found it, he couldn't help himself. The phoenix tattoo covered it well, but Justin was learning Chris's body as well as his own.

The scar stretched from wrist to elbow, a shallow wound that had healed cleanly. Justin would rest his fingertips on that tiny ridge of skin that always felt warmer than the rest of Chris's body, and he would try to imagine what it had been like. What she was like. Usually he pictured it as a happy scene, by choice rather than expidency. He could imagine Chris in his white doublet and hose, with the same peculiar expression he wore when wading into a fight, a combination of gleeful and terrified. He could imagine Chris's family dressed in their finest, weeping and happy. He could even imagine the priest, reciting the familiar words and blessing the knife, then carefully drawing the blade down Chris's arm. In his imagination, Chris never winced. He could imagine the priest making a similar gash down her arm, then binding her and Chris's arms together to complete the ceremony, blood of two families joining to become one. He could imagine everything, down to the very last details of of her dress and Chris's hair, but he could never picture the face of Chris's bride.

He never tried to imagine why Chris had left.

Likewise, Chris never commented on Justin's refusal to go shirtless. Even when they were tracking that krayyt lizard across the Boethean desert in the middle of summer two years back, he always wore an undershirt of some sort. Even when they had a private room, a flea-free bed, no one calling for their heads, and the time to properly appreciate one another, Justin still kept his shirt on unless it was dark. Chris, for once, did not tease him. Chris never said anything, and Justin never said anything about Chris's silence. But Chris knew. It would have been impossible for Justin to hide a tattoo that large indefinitely.

Chris could see the training in Justin in other ways, too; things that might have tipped him off even if he hadn't managed to spy on Justin unawares while bathing one night. He could see it in the way Justin cared for his clothes, as if each garment was the only one he would ever own. He could see in Justin's clever tongue and diplomacy, when he could talk them out of situations Chris's own tongue had gotten them into. He could see it in the swooping, graceful arch of Justin's writing. He could see it every time Justin picked up a book and read without moving his lips.

Sometimes, when Justin was deeply asleep and relaxed enough to look even younger than he actually was, Chris would steal his fingers up Justin's right sleeve to touch the ornate cross on his shoulder. He had only seen it once, and briefly at that, but he knew what it looked like. Everyone knew what a initiate's tattoo looked like. So Chris knew, but he didn't ask. He didn't ask why Justin was here in his bed instead of alone on a small cot with God. He didn't ask why Justin could move with a sword like it was an extension of his own body, when priests had been forbidden to train with weapons since the last of the warrior priests died over five hundred years ago. He didn't ask why Justin spoke of his mother in gentle, loving tones but had not seen her once in the five years Chris had known him.

They talked about everything else, but never about that.


End file.
